


Above, Beneath, Betwixt, Between

by livia_1291



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: (I am in quarantine), (maybe), A little bit of blood, Again, Emil - Freeform, Homeric Epithets, I'm not sorry, Lynx - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Oneshot, Spirit Guides, Swedish swears, emil tries, emillalli, enchanted forest, fairytales - Freeform, in an equally nebulous time period, it gives me big lalli vibes, lalli - Freeform, myths, onni, ssss - Freeform, stand still stay silent - Freeform, takes place in nebulously nordic background, the hotakainens are some sort of forest spirits, this is NOT what I meant, title is from a little poem by niel gaiman, tuuri - Freeform, under 5000 words, when i said i liked ssss, yet another emillalli fairytale au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livia_1291/pseuds/livia_1291
Summary: "Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind,Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”— Niel Gaiman, The Graveyard BookEmil didn't really sign up to fight for the hand of a forest guardian. He definitely didn't sign up to win the favor of his pet lynx. But life has a tendency to disregard anything that might be too easy for Emil, and like hell he's going to let this chance slip away.An Emilalli fantasy AU featuring failed job hunts, strange magic, and an even stranger lynx.
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Above, Beneath, Betwixt, Between

It was entirely by chance that Emil was in the tavern when the announcement was made. In fact, he was only there on account of a tenth day’s search for work gone fruitlessly, and in a pathetic sort of celebration, he had decided that he could spare a few coins on some beer to take the edge off of his misery before had to do the walk of shame back to his aunt and uncle’s farm for the night.

 _Ten days_ , he thought, taking a mournful sip of the sour liquid in his cup. Ten days, and all that had come of it was the bitter assurance that he wasn’t qualified for even the simplest of jobs. The goatherd had rejected his clumsy attempts to milk a docile old nanny goat, the blacksmith had all-too-kindly told him to find someone else to apprentice with, and the ladies at the dress shop had taken one look at him and laughed him out the door.

Miserably, Emil swished the warm beer around in the bottom of his glass, wrinkling his nose at the yeasty aroma. It wasn’t like he had expected much differently. Being a disgraced aristocrat didn’t leave him with a lot of glowing letters of recommendation, and he had no resumé at all. This job search was a wild goose chase, but he humored his aunt and uncle by going out each morning and trying again. He owed it to them, after all they were doing for him.

He was jolted from his moping by an awed silence sweeping through the hollow gloom of the tavern. In the doorway, haloed by moonlight, stood a broad man wearing, of all things, a white feathered cloak. It swept the dusty floor as he entered, narrow eyes cold as the night outside. 

“Hotakainen,” whispered the old drunk next to Emil, who had put down his seventh glass of the night to stare. 

“Can’t be,” hissed the bar maiden, who was leaning over the counter in an attempt to get a better look, “They’re forest people. They would never come--”

She fell silent when the man turned to address his dazzled audience. He did not clear his throat or clap his hands, but his very presence commanded the room. When he spoke, his voice was as clear and low as a stream tumbling away into rapids.

“I am Onni Hotakainen of the Northern Woods, brother to soft-cheeked Tuuri of the Dawn and the Dew, and cousin to Lalli the Silver-Souled. I have come with a proclamation.”

There was a pause that nobody dared to interrupt. The whole tavern was hypnotized, swaying under Onni’s spell.

“My cousin Lalli seeks a life partner.” There was a moment’s hesitation where Onni winced, nose crinkling, before continuing, “He is...notoriously _difficult_ , so he demands that this arrangement be made on his terms.”

The door swung open again, and in trotted a silver lynx, lithe and graceful. The tavern erupted in a wildfire of murmurs and gasps. People shuffled back as it padded up to Onni’s side where it sat, tame as a housecat, and began washing its great paw with a pink tongue. 

Onni cleared his throat, and silence reigned once more. Emil watched from the bar as he drew a gleaming silver key from the depths of his feathered cloak, and threaded a white silk ribbon through the graceful filigree at the top. With strange care, he tied the ribbon into a tight knot so the key hung on a collar, and held it up so that the crowd could see it. Dangling the necklace from one finger, he knelt before the lynx and murmured a few words to it. The creature dipped its head to allow Onni to hang the key around its neck, and he stood again, raising one hand to bid the tavern.

“Whoever retrieves the key from around his pet lynx’s neck will have Lalli the Silver-Souled’s hand in marriage, and thereby inherit the forest, and all of the riches and secrets within. I wish you all luck. You may begin at dawn tomorrow.”

With that, Onni swept out of the tavern just as he had come, with the magnificent lynx trailing at his heels.

The second he had left and the door was closed, the bar lit up with gossip and chatter.

“Lalli the Silver-Souled? Isn’t he a speaker for the gods?”

“I hear he’s the fairest of the three, sharp as a blade…”

“Marrying him would mean the whole of the forest - he’s Ensi’s heir. Who knows what they’re hiding in there?”

Emil was dizzy with the hazy smoke from the tavern fireplace and the overwhelming information he had just been given. He murmured a hasty thanks to the bar maiden and left a few tarnished copper coins in the bottom of his empty glass as a tip, before slinking outside to gulp in the night air.

This was it. This was his chance. If he could marry back into wealth, he and his family would be saved. The gravel crunched under his feet as he walked back down the dark, winding road to Siv and Torbjörn‘s place, paying no mind to the howls and creaks coming from the depths of the forest. His greeting to his sleepy aunt and uncle was far more cheerful than it usually was after a failure of a day, and he could even find it in himself to whistle as he climbed up into the loft to settle into bed. That was, until Siv told him to be quiet, because the children were asleep.

Tomorrow, he thought as he drifted off into a dream. Tomorrow would not be a failure. He would get up with the sun to be the first in the forest, and he would get that key before anyone else had a chance to even think about it.

_Tomorrow._

* * *

Emil had never been a morning person, so it was no wonder that the sun was already above the trees when he was roused by his little cousins’ shrill shrieking as they terrorized the family cat. A quick glance out the window, and his heart dropped to his stomach. He was late.

 _“För fan i helvete!”_ he hissed, yanking on his boots and skidding down the ladder from the loft. Siv looked over her shoulder from where she was kneading dough for bread, arching a brow at his haste.

“Finally getting excited about looking for jobs, are we?” She asked, and Emil shrugged as he grabbed a slice of buttered toast from the plate sitting on the kitchen table.

“Be back before sundown this time,” she called over her shoulder as he pulled on his cloak and tossed his bag over his shoulder, “Torbjörn and I won’t wait, and you’ll sleep in the barn!”

* * *

The town was almost as busy as it was on a festival day. The central square was choked with throngs of people, and Emil had to wade through the crowds to find who he was looking for. She wasn’t hard to locate, of course - her brilliant red hair made her easy to spot, and Emil could hear her raucous laughter from a hundred paces.

“Sigrun! Captain Sigrun!” he called, and the woman looked up from where she was chatting with a huge mountain of a man with wild, straw-blond sideburns and a shotgun slung across his broad back.

“Emil!” she crowed, grabbing his wrist and pulling him roughly through the crowd. “My right-hand warrior! How are you doing these days?” She grinned, elbowing him a little too hard in the ribs. 

“Ow,” he muttered, but he could not help his smile at seeing his old sparring coach. “I’ve been better. Do you know if anyone’s got the key off that lynx yet?”

Sigrun whistled, crossing her arms over her chest and clucking her tongue.

“No. Lalli’s a tricky one - we’ve got three of our soldiers in the infirmary right now with some nasty wounds. Two got lucky, just got some scratches, nothing old Mikkel here couldn’t fix with a couple stitches, but the other one…” She frowned, thin brows furrowing as she glanced over to Mikkel.

“The injuries were magical in origin,” Mikkel responded in a voice like the rumbling of an avalanche, pursing his lips. “He’ll heal in time, but whatever’s out there is no joke.”

“Emil,” Sigrun became suddenly serious, leaning forward, “You’re not thinking of going after that key, are you?”

He swallowed. Long ago he had learned better than to lie to Sigrun, and if the knife-sharp look in her eyes was anything to go off of, she was not going to like his answer. Well. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

“Sorry!” He yelled, turning to bolt towards the forest before she could stop him. Her calls after him were choked out by the dense foliage as he entered the woods, finding himself awash with green light and unfamiliar birdsong.

His feet made no sound on the sponge-soft moss as he wandered deeper into the forest. Where would one even begin looking for a lynx with a key around its neck, he wondered, idly reaching for the knife at his belt and rubbing his thumb over the worn engraving on the handle. And how was he expecting to trap it? All that was in his bag was a measure of rope, some stale bread, and a little leather bag with three coins and a sprig of dried rosemary for protection.

Emil was so lost in thought that he did not notice where his feet had taken him. The trees had created a little circle around a dead log, long fallen and hollowed by insects, mushrooms, and weather, and there, curled in the log, fast asleep, was Lalli’s silver lynx. The ornate key rested, bright and alluring, on its paws. For a moment, Emil couldn’t breathe.

This was it. Move fast, pin it down, take the key, and it would be over. He would have his fortune back. 

So why couldn’t he move? He was enthralled, captivated by the soft rise and fall of breath behind the ribs, by the sunlight dappling bright fur, by the faint blue glow that seemed to flicker in and out of existence around it. It was _beautiful_ , and it radiated a sort of power that Emil had only ever read about in his school books. This was not a normal lynx.

Emil was so busy staring that he didn’t notice when the creature opened its eyes. He had to stifle his gasp when it stood and stretched, but it was too late. Bright grey eyes met his, and not for the first time that day, he was knocked breathless.

The lynx made no move to run. It only sat and stared at Emil, cocking its head just a little when he exhaled in defeat.

He couldn’t do this. There was something in those eyes that was too familiar, too knowable and tangible for comfort. He couldn’t take the key without feeling like he was stealing, taking something that didn’t belong to him, or to _anybody_ , really. Emil was many things, spoiled and prissy and clumsy, but he was _not_ a thief.

In the distance, the steady, clarion call of a hunting horn sounded, stirring sleeping birds from the trees. The earth quivered with the rumble far-off hoof beats, but the radiant creature holding Emil’s gaze didn’t seem spooked in the slightest. 

“Go,” he whispered, flicking his hand to shoo it along, “they’re coming for you, you have to run.”

The lynx blinked slowly. Emil stumbled back when it padded towards him, gulping down his fear. _It’s going to kill me,_ he thought, remembering what Sigrun and Mikkel had told him in town. _This is it._

Instead of lunging for his throat, the lynx bumped its furry head against his knees and gave him one last look before trotting off into the deep brush again.

Emil collapsed.

As Siv had requested, he was back home by sundown. Uncharacteristically, he barely spoke as he shoveled down a dinner of curly egg noodles and thick brown gravy, excusing his silence by claiming that he had had a long day (it wasn’t a lie) and instead choosing to listen to his three little cousins babble.

“I saw a huge yellow butterfly, cousin Emil! I tried to catch it, but it flew too high!”  
  
“I read a book! Well, a few pages... Mom says I’m doing well!”

“Are _not_!”

“Am _too_!”

Torbjörn gave Emil a long-suffering smile, ladling more gravy onto his noodles as Siv tried to calm the squabbling children. 

“Long day? You can go to bed,” he mouthed to him across the table, and Emil nodded gratefully, rinsing his dishes in the sink and shuffling upstairs to flop bonelessly onto his bed. Although every inch of him was exhausted, sleep did not come until the moon was high in the sky.

* * *

Fishing had never been Emil’s strong suit, so Torbjörn’s surprise when he asked for the old wooden pole they kept in the dilapidated shed behind the barn was not unwarranted. 

“You need the fishing pole? What for?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he gazed skeptically down at his nephew. Emil had not asked to go fishing since he was five years old and still slept with a candle burning by the bed.

“Catching fish,” stated Emil, meeting his eyes with conviction blazing in his own, and Torbjörn decided it was best not to ask this time around.

Twenty minutes later, Emil was crouched by the pond, wincing at the feel of cold, floppy worms between his fingers. This _had_ to work. There was no way he had woken up with the sun and spent an hour digging for worms in the dirt to come up with no fish.

Just as he was beginning to lose hope, he was treated to a tug on the end of his line, and a brief fight lead to a fat green perch tucked away in his bag. _Perfect._

“Ew, ew, ew,” Emil murmured to himself as the dying fish flopped fruitlessly against his leg while he walked into the forest, searching for the clearing with the hollow log. There were no clear trails near his aunt and uncle’s farm, and he was beginning to regret not just going into town to follow the main path. 

The sound of a leaf crunching somewhere in the undergrowth beside him made him jump, and he whipped around to search the brush around him for whatever horrible beast had to have been stalking him. His mind went wild with the stories that his parents had told him as children: the Huldra, the Mare, and worst of all, the trolls. 

Nothing of the sort waited to tear his body to shreds. Instead, the silver lynx was waiting ten paces away from him when he turned around, bright-eyed and attentive. The key still hung, untouched, around its noble neck.

“You scared me half to death! Here, I brought something for you,” Emil breathed, dropping to his knees to dig the freshly dead fish out of his bag. He tried not to wince at the slime on his hands as he held it out in an offering, holding his breath.

The lynx gazed at him, and then at the fish, then back to him. It did not move. 

_It thinks I’m going to try and take the key_ , Emil realized. Carefully, he tossed the fish underhand between them, wiping his hands on the moss and rocking back on his heels to watch.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to take that from you,” he gestured to the key with a flick of his wrist, “I just...I didn’t know if you were getting to eat, with all of those people after you.”

A long, tense moment passed before the lynx seemed to decide he was trustworthy enough to inch forward, snatch up the fish, and retreat back down the path to eat it while staring unblinkingly at him.

“It must be exhausting, to be on the run all the time…” He mused, leaning back on his palms. “I guess Lalli protects you when you need to rest, huh?”

No response. Emil chuckled to himself, shaking his head and gazing up to the sky through the canopy above his head.

“Lalli the Silver-Souled...I wonder what he’s like. Probably would think I’m weird for talking to a lynx,” he sighed, closing his eyes and inhaling the strange, sweet breeze that swept through the trees. If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed that the lynx’s eyes were glowing starlight blue.

* * *

Emil must have fallen asleep, because when he regained awareness, he was in a snow-covered wilderness in unfamiliar clothes. The smell of gunpowder and foreign magic clung to him, and in the distance, he noticed a strange vehicle, and the silhouettes of four other people. It was overwhelmingly familiar, but that he was sure he had never been in this situation in his life.

By his side was a slender, pale-eyed man with high cheekbones and a rifle slung across his back. Emil was sure they had never met, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him felt _right_ , like this was exactly where he was supposed to be.

When Emil looked at him, the man’s pretty almond eyes burned blue, and the dream shattered into a thousand pieces.

He woke up alone.

* * *

“Oh! You came back!”

Emil looked up from where he was laying out the day’s offering of freshly-caught fish with a start, and his eyes went wide with shock. The luminous woman before him was petite and curvy, draped in fine white cloth that floated around her as she moved. A circlet of what looked to be dewdrops rested in her cropped, fluffy hair. Vaguely, Emil realized that her bare feet were not touching the mossy ground. With her light complexion and ethereal aura, she was almost (but not quite) like a ghost.

“Um,” he replied intelligently, and she grinned, stepping through the cool morning air to stand before him.

“Hi. I’m Tuuri! Onni’s sister? I saw you yesterday, bringing fish. And the day before that. You catch them yourself? That’s kind of you, Lalli told me you’re the first to--” She stopped, covering her dawn-pink mouth with the hand she had not offered to him in greeting. “Oh, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that!”

A little too late, Emil took her extended hand and shook it, wondering if perhaps he was supposed to kiss the back of her palm instead. What was the proper way to greet a forest spirit? Tuuri’s warm smile told him that he had nothing to be worried about.

“So, you’re from around here?” She asked, sitting cross-legged on the dark earth and gesturing invitingly to the space across from her. “Sorry, I just don’t really get a lot of visitors. My brother does a good job keeping the borders secure, and Lalli…” She shrugged, “He’s okay company, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” Emil assured her, settling down across from her in the moss. “I’m not from around here, actually. I used to live up north, with my parents, and I went to school in the city for a bit, but now I live here, with my aunt and uncle.”

“Oh! How nice it must be, to be able to see so much of the country…” Sighed Tuuri dreamily, resting her chin in her palms. “I’ve always wanted to leave the forest, but Onni says it’s too dangerous for me.”

“Well, if you ever get a chance to leave, I’m sure that my aunt and uncle would be happy to have you, and I wouldn’t mind showing you around the town,” he offered politely. Tuuri’s eyes lit up, and she clasped her hands together at her chest, delighted.

“Really? Would you? That would be so wonderful! I can’t wait, I’ll have to ask Onni the next time I--”

Tuuri was cut off by the call of an owl, echoing clear and piercing through the trees, and she groaned and dragged herself to her feet. 

“I have to go, I’ve already been here too long,” she fretted, offering a hand to help a bewildered Emil back to his feet. “It was nice meeting you! If Lalli’s right, and he usually is, I’ll see you again! Bye!”

With that, she let go of his hand and fled into the trees, gone as quickly as she had come.

Emil stared after her into the trees, swallowing past the dryness in his mouth. So that was soft-cheeked Tuuri Hotakainen of the Dawn and the Dew. She was kinder than he had expected - somehow he had been imagining a female version of Onni, but Tuuri was far gentler and sweeter. There was no mistake to be made, though. The quickness of her tongue left no question as to whether or not she was a woman to be crossed.

What had she said? “ _If Lalli’s right, I’ll see you again soon?”_ Had Lalli been watching him too? It would make sense, of course, that Lalli would want to know how the hunt for the key was going... He had much to ponder as he sat near the fish he had brought and waited, listening to the song of the cicadas and the quivering of the leaves above him.

“Lalli _is_ right about you,” chirped a tiny, glowing white bird from where she watched, tucked high in the branches, “Good luck.”

* * *

Emil woke in the dead of the night to a piercing, wild-animal scream that rattled his very bones. He was up in a fraction of a second, bare feet hitting the floor hard as he dashed over to the chair where he had stashed his boots and day clothes and pulled them on hastily. 

_Hurry_. Something primal in his chest told him that he had no time to spare. He was out the door and gone into the night before Siv and Torbjörn could even wake up enough to realize that he was gone.

The forest was difficult enough to traverse during the day, but with only the cold light of the waning half-moon to guide him, nighttime navigation was nearly impossible. Emil tripped and slid his way over roots and pitted earth, following the horrible yowls of the trapped creature. The sick feeling deep in his stomach told him that he already knew what it was, and where he was going, but he did not want to believe it. He wouldn’t. Not until he saw it, anyway.

The trees seemed to part for him as he burst into the clearing, chest heaving. Laying in the pool of moonlight was the lynx, snarling with the fury of the gods. One back paw was snared tight in a crude rope trap.

“It’s okay,” Emil gasped, still trying to catch his breath, “I’m here.” He extended his empty hands to the frightened creature as a gesture of peace, trying to quiet the low, persistent growling. Eventually, the lynx stilled, and Emil knelt beside it and drew his knife, beginning to hack away at the rough rope.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you, kid,” came a gravelly voice from over Emil’s left shoulder.

A woman with long, silky brown hair pulled into a tight braid had her sword levelled at Emil. One night-dark eye glared confidently at him, while the other remained hidden behind a frayed patch that looped over ears that were just slightly too pointed.

“I trapped the beast fair and square. Now step aside and let me take what’s mine,” she told him, and Emil was acutely aware of the way the faint moonlight reflected off of the honed edge of her sword.

“No,” he told her, and though his voice quavered when he spoke, he got to his feet and extended his Mora knife in a reciprocation of her challenge. “Leave it alone. I won’t let you take the key. Not like this. It’s dishonorable.”

She snarled, red lips curling back to reveal pearly teeth. “Poor choice, kid. Dishonor doesn’t much matter when you’ve got the whole forest in the palm of your hand. I‘m going to get that damned key, the easy way, or the hard way, and unluckily for both of us,” she clicked her tongue, “you’ve chosen the hard way.”

When she charged him, he barely had time to sidestep her before she had turned to strike again.

 _Fan_. She had a sword, and he only had a little knife. There was no way he’d be able to hold her off for long. What had Sigrun said about fighting someone with a bigger weapon than yours?

 _Get in close,_ she had told him once as she easily caught the blow from his shortsword on the hilt of her knife, _and mess them up._

With a yell, he lunged, throwing himself past the range of her sword to strike at her shoulder. Metal bit through cloth and leather, and she growled through her teeth. The warm, coppery tang of blood was sharp in the air.

Her rage mounting, she cried out in the night, and Emil flinched away from her furious strike. She was quick, and better than he was. It was only a matter of time before she--

Emil’s Mora knife thudded to the soft earth, and a knee to his chest sent him tumbling after it. He sprawled on his back, heart hammering in his chest as he stared up into her unforgiving eye. Vaguely, he noted that there was no white - her whole sclera was pitch black.

“Game over,” the woman hissed, and Emil closed his eyes, waiting for the bite of sharpened steel on his throat. It never came.

Instead, when Emil opened his eyes, he found her with her back against a great elm tree, quivering in every limb. Before her, free from the ropes that had bound it, was the lynx. Its eyes were glowing with the same icy blue light that flickered like smoke around its whole body, and its teeth were bared in a silent threat.

The whole forest seemed to quake when it spoke without speaking. Its mouth did not move, but Emil heard its voice loud and clear in his head, though it was not directed to him.

 **_GET OUT_**. 

The woman did not stick around to ask questions. Leaving her sword on the ground, she turned on her tail and fled back towards the town, where the sun was rising gold and pink over the tops of the trees.

The woods grew still again, awash with morning dew and the sweetness of the dawn. Emil sat down on the log to catch his breath, wiping sticky sweat from his brow and checking himself over for scratches and scrapes. Other than the few he had sustained stumbling through the forest on his way to the clearing, he was unscathed.

A soft brush of fur against the underside of his wrist drew him back to his surroundings, and he looked down to his furry companion, a soft smile curving his tired lips up.

“Good to see you’re okay. I knew you could speak.”

The lynx did not choose this moment to speak again. It didn’t need to - its message was perfectly clear. Standing proud and fierce before Emil, it purred, and lowered its graceful head in an offering.

“Can I…?” Emil whispered, reaching for the silk ribbon with shaking fingers. Carefully, with utmost caution, he lifted it off of the lynx’s neck.

The moment the silk was free of pale fur, there was a blinding flash of blue light, and Emil threw his hands in front of his eyes to protect them. When the light died down, a young man was on one knee in front of him, head bowed. Around his shoulders was a cloak of the same slightly speckled fur that the lynx had had, and his jaw-length silver hair was reminiscent of the tufts of fur around the creature’s cheeks. While Emil was certain he had ever seen this man before, his heart exactly who he was, just as his feet knew the path to take into the forest.

When Lalli looked up to Emil with moon-pale eyes and the faintest suggestion of a smile, all of his words caught in his throat and he had to rest his weight against the birch tree behind him to stop the world from spinning.

“Lalli?” He breathed, “You’re...the lynx?”

“I wanted this to be on my terms, and I don’t like the way people treat me if I know who I am.” He shrugged his slender shoulders, getting to his feet and offering a surprisingly delicate hand to Emil, who took it without a second thought. “This was the best solution. You don’t...mind being my choice?”

Emil shook his head immediately, falling into easy step beside his new partner as they walked back towards the village. The trees parted before Lalli, who moved with catlike, easy grace. 

“Only if you don’t mind being mine,” he responded, and when Lalli squeezed his hand a little hesitantly as they exited the forest and stepped into the morning sunlight, it was only natural to squeeze back.

* * *

They say that the forests of the North are guarded by a strange pair. Like night and day they are, silver and gold, sun and moon. The story of Emil of the Western Streams and how he won the hand and heart of Lalli the Silver-Souled with his unwavering heart of gold and fierce loyalty is still a favorite of the towns bordering the forest today.

Tuuri finally managed to convince Onni to allow her to see the world. With Lalli and Emil’s rule over the forest secured, she insisted that there was no longer any reason to keep her cooped up. After a year away exploring, she opened a library in the town center with a red-headed shepherd that she found on one of her expeditions to retrieve new stories. Onni contents himself teaching kantele to the three little blond children who visit the forest to see their cousin on occasion. 

And Lalli and Emil themselves? They’re still hand in hand, ruling fairly and justly over their realm just as they have done for all these long years, and will do hereafter.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> Unfortunately, I am back early from Canada on the grounds of this virus, and am almost one week into my two week quarantine. Fortunately, that gives me a lot of time to write.
> 
> Sorry that it's another Emillalli fairytale AU! I got this idea from a tumblr prompt, and it wouldn't leave me alone. I might write a (far shorter) sequel in the near future - who knows.
> 
> Lots of love, and I hope you all are staying safe!
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv
> 
> EDIT: I have written the sequel! It is fluffy as promised - you can find it on my page under the title In The Bleak Midwinter.


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